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Friday, January 1, 2010

2010: Goals & Resolutions

"You have a specific responsibility to existence, to God if you like, to taste, touch and smell what there is to experience. You have to do everything. If given an option between doing something and not doing it, you have to do it; because you've already done the "not do it" part.
- Sam Sheridan, "A Fighter's Heart"


Resolutions: More general in nature than goals, without necessarily having a number or defined "success point."

1. Curse Less: There are times when "fuck" is truly the only acceptable word for a given situation, and I have no problem with you (or I) using it in those situations.  I do think it should be slightly less common than the average pronoun though, so I want to work on reserving my cursing for those times that call for it.

2.  Think My Own Thoughts: I constantly have some form of external stimulus going on.  Whether its TV, the computer, my cell phone and text message friends, or just music, it is rare that I have the silence around me to just let my mind drift and think what it needs to think.  This is one reason that I like solo hiking.  After 20-30 minutes, your mind just seems to let go and drift in whatever direction it wants.  I want to make sure that I spend time each day either medititating, writing stream of conscious, hiking solo, or just giving myself some time to sit and think.

3.  Consistency in Training:  2009 was all over the place in terms of boxing training.  I would work hard and smart leading up to a fight or event, and then basically, not do shit in the 4-8 weeks following that.  Its ok to take a week or two off, but anymore than that is just being lazy. 

4.  Limit my use of Technology: Jokes on me, since I am writing this on a computer, but I definitely want to get away a bit from the idea of the online community, whether that is facebook, internet forums or what have you.  Some of that stuff is good, but not as much of it as I am doing. 

5.  Use Every Weekend Well: Too often I am content to just chill out in my neighborhood.  This year I want to make sure to get outside each weekend for hiking, camping, visiting friends, etc.

Goals:  Specific and with a set end-date for success or failure. 

Sports & Recreation:
  • Spar 600 rounds over the course of the year
  • Win 1 tournament
  • Turn Open-Class in Boxing
  • Break a 5 minute mile
  • Hike/Run 1000 miles over the course of the year
  • Deadlift 450 LBS
  • Perform 1-arm Pullup
Financial
  • Pay off the rest of my debt
  • Build 6 month Emergency Fund
  • 6% Pre-Tax Income to Roth
  • Invest in stock market
Reading & Writing
General Know-How & Survival
Travel & Adventure
  • Visit 2 new contries
  • Get at least 2 multi-day backpacking adventures in; 1 with Salman
  • Summit another mountain. With ice.
  • Get back to Joshua Tree
Neither Resolutions nor Goals, but would like to see happen in 2010
  • Find the right woman
  • Live closer to Parents
  • Get my eyes fixed
  • Have my brother live with me for a bit when he gets back from Kiwi-Land
  • Build up network of outdoorsy-types for kickass expedition-style travel.
In short, nothing less than utter domination can be accepted.  This time next year I will be more competent, accomplished, and possibly an even more pleasant person to be around.

11 comments:

floreta said...

AWESOME quote! you seem like a really cool guy. love the adventure/ruggedness bit :) i used to train martial arts and would love to pick it up again.. i'm just so sporadic about it! here's to an awesome 2010.

Lorien said...

Funny enough, my last two blog posts had the words "FUCK" all over it. Happy fucking New Year. Fuck 2009. LOL. I should curse less, I agree with that. My nomadic life won't let me train enough... so I can't do the amature MMA like I wanted, but that's ok. I'm just happy running marathons. Good luck with your boxing. As one fighter to another, I hope you get the results you want!

Martin said...

Floreta - thanks for coming by. I like the layout on your new site. I hope you get back into martial arts; girls who train are awesome.

Lorien - The posts you were referring to definitely warranted some F-bombs, and thats what its all about - appropriateness. No one drops a weight on their toes and says "darn it." Your wine and mountain end of the year sounds perfect.

Elizabeth Marie said...

I like the travel and adventure section...
I have always wanted to "hike" Kilimanjaro. It's a life goal, but if it happened in 2010 I wouldn't be mad.

See us fashionista's can get down and dirty too :)

Happy 2010

 ALH said...

I love the link to the Artist's way Morning Pages. I think I am going to try this for the new year as well. Your blog is interesting and detailed. Hope you have a lot of success with your goals this new year.

Martin said...

Liz - Thanks for coming by. Kilimanjaro would be rad. Ill come.

ALH - Thanks. Let me know how your go with the morning pages works. I have rarely gone for mone than a few days in a row on it before slacking...not near long enough to get any benefits from it.

rizmalove said...

heyyy Martin! It looks like I need to take on some of your more general goals myself. Specifically, I need to curse less (so far, not going so well), and "train" consistently - for me, this means running and Wii Active training haha.

I love love love your "Use Every Weekend Well" goal and am making it my own as well :D

Good luck with it all! :D

Alison said...

OMG i feel so underprepared for the year by comparison. Well actually no comparison needed i've only got vague aims in mind. Now i think i really must plan a little better or how am i going to fit in everything i want to do?? So far:
- Fight more (esp pro fights)
- Medal at the European champs
- Travel again somewhere new (and exotic)
- Do at least one more crazy challenge, prob for charity. Am thinking 3 peaks at the moment but i might be tempted by another marathon...

And thats all i got, not much for the mind and soul there is there? oops. But if you do even half of your aims you will have accomplished some major achievements. Good luck!

Martin said...

Rupa - after stealing my lightning bolts, I suppose taking the "use weekends well" goal is fitting. Good luck with it :)

Alison - Good goals! Question: how are you able to fight ammy AND pro? For us here in the states, we lose our amateur status if we have a pro fight. Is it different for muay thai, or for the country you compete in?

I wouldnt worry too much about not having mental and spiritual challenges. Training hard, competing and everything that goes into it is as much for the mind as the body anyway. Thanks for coming by :)

Alison said...

I think thats just the way muay thai is. I know loads of ppl from differnt countries who competed in the worlds (amateurs) who are very experiended pro fighters. In the mens at least they have A and B class in amateurs (at world level) depending on fight experience. There was a rule passed this year though that actual WMC world title holders couldn't compete in the IFMA amateur worlds but i know at least one still did. Dont get disqualified unless someone lodges a complaint and most ppl would love a chance to fight a world title holder when you wouldn't otherwise get a chance.

I guess muay thai isn't as widespread or organised as boxing but they're definitely not mutually exclusive, they run parallel though the pro game is bigger in the UK than amateurs, the organised amateur scene is quite a recent development in the UK. Weird eh?

Plus its not like you really get paid for pro fights (at least in UK)until you are fighting A class (full thai rules) or international bouts and are high up the bills (plus being a bloke helps), and some countries have more money in the sport than others. Otherwise you just get expenses. Ppl who need the money switch to K1.

Strange but true...

Martin said...

Alison - That's really interesting! Yah, the way they regard it in the US (at least for boxing), is that as soon as you get paid for a fight, you are a professional, and barred from amateur competition. Not sure how it works if you had pro fights in another sport, such as muay thai, and then wanted to fight amateurs in western boxing.

Cool story.